The world's deadliest tower block fires

A retired judge, Sir Martin Moore-Bick, has been appointed to head the official inquiry into London’s Grenfell Tower fire in which at least 79 people died, while the police say they are investigating any criminal offences that may have been committed.

The deadliest ever fire in a tower block (or blocks) was the result of the terrorist attack on New York’s World Trade Centre on 11 September 2001, which cost more than 2,300 lives, but the worst accidental fire was probably the one that raged through the 25-storey Joelma office building in Sao Paulo, Brazil on 1 February 1974. (Grenfell Tower had 24 storeys.)

The blaze happened just a few weeks after the disaster movie, The Towering Inferno, was released, and it became known as ‘the real Towering Inferno’. It was started by an electrical fault on the 11^th floor, and spread rapidly thanks to the ready availability of combustible materials such as paper, plastics and wooden walls and furniture.

When the blaze began, there were more than 750 people in the building. More than 170 fled to the roof, but the heat and smoke foiled a helicopter rescue, and about 40 were killed jumping down or trying to get to firemen’s ladders out of reach below them. Altogether up to 189 people died. 

Tower block disasters

The fire that raged through 24 storey Grenfell Tower, which has killed 79 people, is the deadliest in London during the 21^st century, and the worst ever in a UK tower block. Another fourteen people are in hospital.

Until now, London’s most notorious tower block disaster was Ronan Point in Newham in 1968. The building had 23 storeys and was brand new. Families had been in for only two months when at six o’ clock on a May morning, they were woken by a huge explosion and some found their walls ripped away, leaving them staring at a fearful drop just a few feet away.

The whole of one corner had simply fallen away. On floor after floor, furniture was left perched on the edge of the abyss. Five people were killed and eleven injured.

The cause was a gas explosion on the 18^th floor – the result of a substandard brass nut connecting a cooker to the gas supply. The council repaired the block and moved tenants back in, but the explosion was a major blow to the prestige of tower blocks, and in 1986, Ronan Point was demolished.

For the story, see London’s Disasters. From Boudicca to the Banking Crisis.